A deep dive into 2025 Smokies visitation number - it is better than every thinks!
If you look in the news or in posts here, you will see the reported Smokies visitation numbers are down by 700K for 2025. On the face, this seems like a big drop, and the sky is falling. When you dive deeper, the true number is greatly less. When you take out road closures and known impacts, the number is closer to being down 250,00 to 300,000 visitors (see detailed breakdown below of known impacts). As of Nov 30th, the Lodging Revenue for the city of Gatlinburg was only down .49% YTD, and Pigeon Forge was up 0.1% YTD. In dealing with STRs in the area, the demand overall is only reduced by 5%-7%.
So why the poor returns for some STRs in the area in 2025?
1. The Race to the Bottom - Owners/Managers keep lowering their prices, and then other owners see others' lowered prices, so they drop below them. Then they repeat the cycle.
2. Poor Maintenance - Owners/Managers are letting maintenance go due to decrease revenue, starting a spiral to the bottom quality and poor reviews. This results in lower ADR, and the poor reviews result in less occupancy. For example, a cabin I was considering buying even had mold on the couch.
3. Tired Owners/Managers - They are just tired of dealing with other people's problems and repairs. Many are not even equipped to deal with their own problems. These owners want out, and if it is a manager, he/she is retired or coasting on duty.
4. Poor Management - They are not keeping on top of things, not updating listings, not updating photos, not replacing poor pots & pans, and are not doing revenue management or looking at more ways to drive traffic to their properties.
5. Inventory is higher by about 5% over demand. I believe a Smokies reset is happening, which will remove some of the inventory, and I will post more later on this. Building permits are tremendously down, and completed new construction STRs are significantly down. They are seeing a shift to permanent residences in new construction in the area.
6. The economy: higher interest rates on credit cards, car loans, and consumer loans are eating into disposable incomes. Also, the longest government shutdown in history impacted people's plans in 2025, as many live paycheck to paycheck. This is why we saw a lower-than-expected demand for the first three weeks of November.
I went to the NPS website to look actual visitor count breakdown by area and cross-referenced the decreased count areas to known closures or impacts, which you can look at here:
https://irma.nps.gov/Stats/SSRSReports/Park%20Specific%20Rep...
Abram’s Creek closed for a significant time, down 10,488 visitors
Heintooga Ridge closed for a time, down 3,738 visitors
Oconaluftee – campground closures during the govt shutdown impacted numbers, and hard to tell the impact
Cosby Campground was closed for almost a month for repaving in April/May and then 42 days during the shutdown, down 18,366 visitors
Foothills Parkway East – impacted by fire closure and by I-40 closures, and reduced capacity, down 327,532 visitors
Greenbriar closures due to Bridge repairs, down 5,772 visitors
Lake View Drive, the tunnel on the road is now permanently closed to vehicles, down 6,168 visitors
Wear Cove - Metcalf bottoms closures due to road work, and Little River Rd repair closures, down 35,338 visitors